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Estate Services Plan

Prepare a plan today

so that your estate ends with a happy family

Most people leave their executor with some instructions about what they want for a funeral. Most funerals are planned and completed in about five days.

HOWEVER, very few people leave their executor with any guidance on what to do for the next 18-24 months (or longer) required to conclude the estate. Most executors have to “learn as they go”. This can be time consuming, require more legal expenses than necessary and can be frustrating to the beneficiaries anxious to receive their gift from the estate.

The Estate Services Plan provides guides and tools to help your Executor successfully settle your estate, and can protect them against lawsuits while doing so.

features include:

1. Executor Support Services

  1. Detailed Executor Guides
    Detailed Executor Guides are provided to identify tasks and keep a detailed record for the executor to use to document their efforts, and which can be used to share the results with the beneficiaries. It is an excellent and comprehensive communication tool that helps the executor to transparently record many activities.
  2. Document Services
    There are many notifications that need to be performed by the executor; our document services providers will complete the forms required individually, address them to the necessary parties, i.e. Government agencies, banks and credit card suppliers, utilities, credit reporting agencies, service providers. 

     

    Your executor just signs the notices and posts them for delivery

  3. Will Review
    Executors can quickly encounter difficulties by not following the terms of the will. The Estate Services Plan team will review the will as part of the process and provide your executor with commentary about where they can go if they require specific administrative assistance.
  4. Notices to Creditors
    NoticeConnect® is a service that advertises your passing in certain approved publications. These notices are necessary to allow creditors to your estate to notify the executor of outstanding claims or debts. This is important, because the executor may become personally responsible to pay such debts if a collection action occurs but there was no public notice given to creditors as required under various provincial estates laws.
  5. Identity Theft Services
    The identity of deceased individuals becomes a convenient target for criminals to steal and use to incur debts from fraudulently obtained credit cards or even mortgages placed on real property. 

     

    Identity theft services provide credit reporting tools and services that are important to the executor to use to monitor the credit risk of the estate in order to protect the family’s inheritance.

2. Final Expenses

It may take time to access bank accounts and investment accounts, but certain estate expenses, including estate tax or probate fees (about $15,000 per $1 million of estate value in Ontario), may need to be paid in the meantime.

Rather than expecting your son, daughter or other family member to borrow from a line of credit or a credit card with these expenses, you can have a cash benefit made immediately available to your estate. Preparing to have sixty to ninety days of potential estate expenses available to the executor can save time, expense and further anxiety.

It’s money that will be paid from your estate in any event. This feature just makes it simpler and less time consuming than trips to the bank, credit union or an investment firm to try to liquidate accounts on short notice.

3. Executor Compensation

Typically, executor fees are paid from the assets of the estate. The executor needs to i) obtain the consent of the beneficiaries; and ii) pay personal income tax on the amount paid to them as compensation.

It can be simpler to pay executor fees from the Estate Services Plan. This eliminates the need for the family to agree on the correct amount, and the executor can avoid personal income tax when they are paid executor fees through an insurance policy.

4. Executor Liability Insurance

Executors are, perhaps to the surprise of you, your daughters and sons, personally liable to the beneficiaries, creditors and other parties having some business with the estate after you’ve passed away.

Most parents who ask a child to act as their executor would prefer to avoid making the child financially responsible for unintentional errors that they might make in settling the estate.

The ERAssure Executor Liability Insurance policy covers the costs of defense and indemnity should the executor make an error in the estate administration that results in a reduction of estate value to the beneficiaries.

This is valuable protection for your family, given that in the absence of insurance, defense costs are often paid out of the estate and at the expense of beneficiaries.

Sample Costs

Monthly Cost (assuming 15-year payment term; other payment periods are available)

Estate Assets up to $1,000,000  Estate Services Plan  

 

(including Executor Support Services) *

Applicant Age 60 $32.48
Applicant Age 65 $35.04
Applicant Age 70 $37.92
Estate Assets over $1,000,000  
Applicant Age 60 $56.84
Applicant Age 65 $61.32
Applicant Age 70 $66.36

 

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